i'm don lemon in headquarters. see you back here at 10:00 p.m.'s tern. "cnn presents" footnotes of 9/ 1 begins right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> if this guy doesn't look like an arab terrorist, nobody does. >> i said three words. should i have said something else? what is more to the point than be ware? >> is that american 11 trying to call? >> reporter: they are the people who awoke september 11th living ordinary lives.

>> i was in my office, sitting in that chair. >> reporter: suddenly thrust into one of the most horrible days in this nation's history. >> they said we have some planes. >> we clearly had a hijack in progress. >> they just said be prepared to shoot down the next hijack track. i said that's a roger. >> they would report 10 miles from the white house. 9 miles. 8 miles. >> reporter: this is their story. >> if it was going to hit anything, it was going to hit us. >> reporter: the footnotes of 9/11. tuesday, september 11th, 2001 dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern united states. so begins the 9/11 commission report and what was about to become a day filled with dark skies.

the first event of that day happened not in washington, boston or new york. but here in portland, maine at mike dewey's u.s. airway ticket carrier. it was just before 6:00 a.m. and dewey had just checked in the first commuter fight to boston. >> i'm going to step out the sidewalk and the smoke. just as i stepped over the counter, i looked out and i see these two fellas standing there. and they're looking around. >> reporter: in the official report of the 9/11 attack, there are 1,742 footnotes. mike tuohey is the very first. >> i looked at the tickets. oh, first class tickets. you don't see $2100 tickets anymore. and these are real tickets. they were paper tickets. i'm saying oh, good thing. i can check them in. >> the names of the the tickets. the ring leader of the operation.

>> i think they were less than 30 minutes prior to their flight. >> reporter: 500 miles away and 1:46 later, vaughn alex was at an american airlines ticket counter at dulles airport where he had worked for 20 years. >> they came in through the doors behind us, walked back and forth a little bit and i had them come right up to my position. vaughn alex is footnote number 12. >> we just finished the morning check in. the counter was clear and i saw these two gentlemen come in. you look back on it and you hate to use words, but it was comical. they came in and they kind of went one way, they looked at our counter, they went the other way. and i turned around to my trainees and i just said flight 77, watch, you know, it's going to be the last two. >> the passengers? two of that flight's five

hijackers. brothers. they, too, were running late, missing flight 77's official check in deadline by mere minutes. >> and at that point, i said to the agent, let me show you how to do this. here's a passenger that's running late, but i think we can get them on. >> the younger fella, he's standing off to the right and behind them. and he's standing there and he's got this grin on his face and he's holding his license up next to his head. and i'm asking the questions has anyone given you anything to carry on the plane? anything strange? no. have your bags been out of your control? he's going just shaking his head like that. and atah, he's the other one. he's holding his license like this. he's not looking at me. he's got his head cocked off to the side and he's just nah, nah. >> and the impression i always

had was so odd becau he was grinning, he was smiling, and he was dancing back and forth. they had one bag totally inappropriate for a trip to los angeles. it was almost like a satchel that had straps across the top of it that didn't even seal. >> reporter: for both vaughn alex and mike tuohey at portland, something didn't seem right. >> i says if this guy doesn't look like an arab terrorist, nobody does. >> reporter: but this was e-9/11. >> and i said oh, that's not a nice thing to think, you know. in this day and age, you've dealt with thousands of these arabics and muslims. it's not nice to think like that. it's just a couple of business guys heading out of town. >> if i had somebody i wasn't comfortable with, i would follow them over to security and

sometimes give a high sign to one of the security guys. >> did you consider doing that? >> i did. as they took the counter, i stepped off and followed them for about three steps, caught myself. i said why am i doing this? and i really swear that there might be something wrong or am i doing this for other reasons that, you know, because of their, you know, their foreign or non-english speaking. >> reporter: you caught yourself thinking am i racial profiling, basically, right? >> i caught myself thinking, you know, am i doing this for a racial reason. and i said no, i'm not doing it for that. and i didn't want to be accused of that and i went back to what i was doing. right after they left the ticket counter, they came over here. i had no reason to doubt that they were who they said they were. i didn't know that they were terrorists. i didn't know anything until the next day. >> reporter: the next day would change vaughn alex forever.

>> i just looked up at the two f.b.i. and i said i did it, didn't i? i checked them in. >> reporter: but tuohey would realize his role within hours of the crashes. >> i was an idiot. he was the terrorist. >> reporter: it was immediate? >> immediately. i mean, come obama. two planes? w one in a lifetime. two in a day? never. >> reporter: it would be only the beginning of tuohey's 10-year struggle to forget one face. >> why do i see him driving by me looking at me in a car? >> reporter: and the day was not over. many more ordinary americans were about to become footnotes of 911. >> all i know there was trouble and i wanted to warn everybody.

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at 7:59 a.m., american

airlines flight 11, a boeing 767 with 81 passengers and 11 crew was taking off from boston's logan airport on its way to los angeles. after u.s. airways mike tuohey checked them in for their first flight in portland, muhammad and abdul made their connection and were now seated in 8-d and 8-g. they would be joined by three more. >> reporter: as the plain made its routine assent, american airlines observed as a blip. >> reporter: terry biggio, foot note 102 was overseeing flight operations for the faa's boston center. >> normal routine day. we were working the morning push and we were set up for a routine

day. >> reporter: mike mccormick footnote 127 was in charge of the f.a.a.'s center in new york. he had spent the past weekend celebrating his 45th birthday with his family in the city. >> we spent a week inanhattan and that was my son's first visit to the world trade center. >> you went to the trade center like a lot of tourists do. >> we went to the base of the south tower and i had him stick his toes triegt up the building and look straight up at the sky and get that sense of vert goe like you could only get in the city like new york. >> reporter: in the next few minu minutes, mccormick and biggio woul face the challenge of their careers. a blip on terry biggio's radar screams was climbing through 26,000 feet and would make its

last transmission to air traffic control. >> reporter: but then, 16 seconds lar, it goes silent. >> reporter: boston's air traffic center terry biggio and others know something is wrong. >> reporter: i don't think you immediately thought hijacking? >> absolutely not. i had been in the agency at the time about 20 years. had never seen a hijack. we thought okay. we had a catastrophic failure of some sort with the aircraft. they can't talk to us. we'll clear the space and let them fly to where ever they're going to fly. >> reporter: as the plane turns south, the 9/11 commission report believes the hijackers tried to talk with passengers on board but did not know how to use the intercom. instead, the messages began transmitting to air traffic control.

>> we had a series of three transmissions. the first one about 8:25. and the transmission was the first portion was not intelligible to the controller. >> reporter: biggio asks a specialist named robert jones to pull the tape, review it and report back. >> i made sure i had those words exact. this is such an important event that i didn't want to misinterpret what was said. >> we had a hijack in progress. >> reporter: american 11 was now a confirmed hijacking and heading straight for new york where mike mccormick was in charge of the f.a.a.'s center. >> have you dealt with a hijacking before? >> that was the first time. it was a brand new event for me. >> this is the air traffic

operation at new york center. it's the largest control room in the united states. >> reporter: mike mccormick sprinted to the floor and went dre directly to an will already crowded screen. area b. >> altitude. in fact, they were turning southbound. i knew it was going to be area b so i could be with the controllers. be with the supervisors and look at the radar sdis play. >> reporter: you want today see that? >> absolutely. went to the radar and we haven't back and forth between the radar screens looking at the activity as it took place and took appropriate actions and made the right decisions. >> reporter: with flight 11 not responding, controllers turn to other eyes in the sky asking other commercial airline pilots if they could spot the american airlines jet. one of the crews responded. united, flight 175.

. >> reporter: one of those planes you contacted was united? >> yes. and united was one of the aircraft that we actually asked to help identify american. >> reporter: united 175 had left boston bound for l.a. terry biggio and mike mccormick were focusing on the american airlines flight 11, full of fuel and headed south. >> you can't assume that the aircraft was going to do anything in new york. possibly was going to continue south and go southwest to washington. >> reporter: otis air force base, cape cod. tim duffy is about to become footnote 117.

>> he said it's american 767 from boston to california. it looks like the real thing. >> were you prepared to take a plane down? hey, i love your cereal there -- it's got that sweet honey taste. but no way it's 80 calories, right? no way, right? lady, i just drive the truck. right, there's no way right, right? have a nice day. [ male announcer ] 80 delicious calories. fiber one.

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8:46 a.m., otis air base, cape cod. tim duffy was working his second job on alert as a fighter pilot with the massachusetts air national guard. duffy, footnote 117 is given the order to scramble his f-15. there is a confirmed hijacking. the order for duffy and his wing man take off from this now deserted airfield. >> reporter: under orders to find and intercept american flight 11. >> these are the two hangers? >> yep, they would have jet ins all of them. just depends on which jets you would need that day. >> reporter: by the end of this

morning, duffy will be asked if he's prepared to use those missiles to bring down u.s. passenger jets. that meant he might be shoot down a plane carrying his colleagues. >> they came right after that and said do you have a problem with that? that kind of ticked me off. that's what sticks in my memory. being in that situation if i wasn't being able to do whatever was being called for, i was the wrong person in that seat. >> reporter: at boston center, terry biggio has asked robert jones to review a tape of the terrorist's radio transmissions chlts on that tape, a startling find. 9/11 may be bigger than just one plane. >> we could hear the hijacker reference planes meani ining multiple plane.

what i was doing was relaying back to terry up in the operations area that there's potentially more aircraft involved. >> even today the hair on the back of my neck stands up when we talk about the hijacking. >> reporter: and you were following it to new york. >> well, thinking that we watched speed, very high rate of speed, about 600 miles southbound. that was another indication that something was obviously bad because someone is in a real hurry here. and i was watching the track of american 11 continue southbound. that's why we thought it was landing setting themselves up for an arrival. >> reporter: but it isn't landing. what biggio doesn't see on his radar screen is this. >> i was on the phone with the new york center, operations matter, and he said no, he hit the building. we knew. we knew it was american 11. we watched it fly. we watched it disappear. there was no doubt.

>> reporter: breaking the sound barrier, tim duffy is barrelling towards manhattan still under orders to intercept a plane. but which plane? conversations show how fast events were moving that chaotic morning. >> reporter: then, 17 minutes after american airlines flight 11 slams into the north tower, at 9:03 a.m., united 175 hits the south tower. >> wirp probably 80 miles or so from manhattan. that's when they told me the secondary craft hit the world

trade center. obviously some confusion in my cockpit. i thought i was chasing the secondary craft, which i didn't know about. so i looked upright away and saw the smoke coming out of both towers. as i saw the smoke, i knew we were obviously under attack. >> reporter: in the new york air traffic control center, mike mccormick, too, realizes the united states is under assault from the air. >> we have to do something to remove their weapons. the weapons, unfortunately, are aircraft. so i couldn't allow anymore aircraft to be in and around new york because i didn't know what else could happen. so i made the decision to clear the skies. we brought all the supervisors from all of the areas up here and provided a briefing to them. this is what's happening. this is what we're doing. this is how we're going to do it. >> reporter: eventually, the unprecedented no-fly order would spread from new york to nationwide. every airplane in the sky,

literally thousands, would be told to land. any airplane that refused the order would be considered hostile. >> by 10:00, the skies were empty with all aircraft except for military aircraft. >> reporter: as the military was being called to protect the air, a united airlines employee was on the ground. december rsperately trying to s flights from disaster. >> so they said hijacking alert. so they said possible hijacking. [ male announcer ] now you can swipe... scroll... tap... pinch... and zoom... in your car. introducing the all-new cadillac xts with cue. ♪ don't worry. we haven't forgotten, you still like things to push. [ engine revs ]

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hello, everyone. i'm don lemon. here are your headlines. two tornadoes hit in new york city today. this is breezy point in queens. the funnel cloud formed over the water and moved up the beach while hundreds of people watched. no one was hurt, but the twister beat up some houses and tore down power lines. the second twister touched down in brooklyn again. a tulane university football player will need spinal surgery after a brutal injury today. safety devon walker fractured his spine in a collision with a teammate. walker also suffered a collapsed lung and had to be revived on the field before being rushed to the hospital. those are your headlines this

hour. i'm don lemon. >> reporter: for six years, ed ballinger has been sailing away from his memories. >> okay. that's good. >> reporter: his refuge? this boat named "the great old broad." he's bn afloat with his wife trying to escape the memory of a few brief words. "beware cockpit intrusion." so they they said hijacking alert. so they said a possible hijacking. ballinger is footnote 69. ten years ago on september 11th, he was a dispatcher for united airlines in chicago handling 16 flights leaving the east coast and heading west.

including united's flights 175 out of boston and 93 from newark. >> first indication i had of 175 was that a stewardess had called in a hijack. >> reporter: in united airlines, san francisco maintenance office was working one last day before leaving for a new job. >> i was kind of realizing this is my last day. kind of bittersweet. and i heard a commotion or someone talking about something hit a building in new york. and i said oh, that's odd. >> reporter: at that moment, one of his workers catches his attention. belme is about to book footnote 81. >> he's walking up towards me white as a ghost. i can just tell something is wrong. and he says i just got a call

from 175. the crew has been killed. the plane has been hijacked. >> reporter: inside united's maintenance office, belme was overseeing routine calls the flight made in the air. calls spelling fix on the key pad. flight attendants asking about coffee makers that didn't work or entertainment systems that needed fixing. but at 9:36 a.m., the call belme answered was chilling. it was from flight 93. >> a female voice comes on the line and says a flight attendant has been killed. there's two guys, one guy in the cockpit and one guy behind the curtain. extremely calm. as a controller, we always want to be calm. she had me beat. she was like talking to a friend. >> united flight attendant sandy bradshaw was telling the

attendant the plane was no longer being controlled by the crew. back in chicago, ed ballinger was trying to send out warnings. messages. anything he could to try and save his planes. >> all i knew is that there was trouble and i wanted to warn everybody. >> one of those flights, ballinger tried to warn, are the airline's version of an e-mail. united flight 93. >> and i was sending out messages, one after the other. i think i sent 123 messages in a short time, an hour or two, i don't know what it was. i was screaming on the keyboard. i don't want to get the captain excited. i just sent him a discreet message. can i be of assistance? can i help you? and, at that time, the huge cbs that we had came on with cnn. >> this just in, you're looking at an obviously very disturbing live shot there.

>> and i saw the secondary plnen which i didn't know at my time was the second tower. and i thought there was a succinct method with doing it with the least amount of words. beware, cockpit intrusion. before i got that one off, 93 called up and said that had a little turbulence. >> so at that point, it was routine. >> so you're sending out your note and you know they got that? >> yeah, they came bhak and said it's unconfirmed. i confirmed back with him with two airplanes in the world trade center. >> reporter: but the confirmation came too late. investigators say two minutes after flight 93's pilot requested clarification, hijackers stormed his cockpit. >> does "beware cockpit

intrusion say it all?" ? ten years later, you're still thinking that? >> yeah. yeah. maybe i should have wrote a dissertation on the thing and sent it to everybody. but i just sent them the quickest, fastest that i could. i can ask you, how would you do it faster? but i keep asking myself that question. >> reporter: isn't that the real reason you're out on this boat? >> it could be. >> reporter: rich belme recounting his call from a flight 93 flight attendant also wonders what more he could have done. >> boy, i think about that all of the time. and i think what i said to her. and i go should i have said something encouraging? because i knew what was going on.

should i have said a prayer? should i -- you know. i don't know. she's an employee. she's doing her job. there's something wrong with the airplane. call work. now it's do our thing. what they decided to do which is amazing and shows a huge amount of courage is when they know their end is near and they said hey, we're t not going to give . i think we should never foet that. >> reporter: when did you find out they didn't -- they didn't make it? well, we could see the f.a.a. had it on scope. and we could tell it was 93. the thaugought of crashing did enter my mind. >> reporter: when his shift ended, so did ballinger's 44-yearlong career. he tried to go back to work but became so overly cautious, he began maiking up reasons to keep planes on the ground.

he retreated for six months to this warehouse where he restored his old sailboat. he was put on 100% disability and retired. he's been sailing with his wife, sally, ever since. >> reporter: ed, do you still have a problem? >> i don't know. i play a lot of music, myself. >> i try not to get in any confrontations at all. i guess i have a problem. i don't want to relive it. >> reporter: up next, another hijacked jet. american airlines flight 77 from washington makes an unauthorized turn south heading right towards footnote 208. secret service agent nelson garibeuo at the white house.

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>> reporter: with now two towers burning, mike mccormick, terry biggio and an army of air traffic controllers trying to ground all airplanes, those that refused, they would become lieutenant colonel tim duffy's problem. >> were you prepared to take a plane down? >> if i had to, yes, i would have. >> reporter: at 9:05 a.m., american airlines learned flight 77 from dulles to los angeles was hijacked. it feels already turning around. this time, heading for washington, d.c. nelson garabilo, footnote 208 was a secret service agent in charge of protecting the white house air spras. in washington, dick cheney was

hustled to a nearby bunker while the president was on air force one. >> first thing i did was pick up my phone to contact the f.a.a. he said we have four planes outstanding. two have hit the towers and two are heading to washington, d.c. one of them approximately 35 minutes out, one of them approximately 45 minutes out. we knew we had some time, but little time. >> reporter: the order came to evacuate the white house. his supervisors gave him and the rest of his staff, including two civilians, the option to leave. no one did. >> so you're basically counting down the plane coming overhead. >> we knew there were two coming, but we don't know where they're coming to. >> reporter: as the minutes then seconds ticked by, garibido braced for impact. >> six minutes out, five minutes

out. we knew it was over the c.i.a. and we thought is that where it's going? but it kept coming. and then at one point, we got under a minute and i said it's about 30 seconds out. >> reporter: in new york, mike mccormick was on a teleconference call listening heplessly to a similar count down. >> the washington controllers came up on the speakerphone and started counting down 10 miles to the white house. 9 miles to the white house. 8 miles to the white house. all the way down to 1 mile from the white house. >> it seems like more than 30 seconds. what do you got? he said i don't know. it's dropped off our radar. >> reporter: american flight 77 did not hit the white house. instead, it crashed into the pentagon. as for the fourth plane, the passengers on board united flight 93 made sure the terrorists wouldn't hit anything but a field in schwenksville,

pennsylvania. >> those individuals may have safed my life. when i think of that, those are the first heroes that i think of. the first people that fought back and we'll never know if we, the white house was a target or whether it was the capitol. >> reporter: as that terrible morning went on, the footnotes of 9/11 would remain on duty. lieutenant colonel tim duffy flew over manhattan for five more hours and he would witness one of the worst images from his cockpit. looking directly down on the last standing tower of the world trade center as it imp lurloded. >> i rolled up on the edge and i was looking at the square of the tower. as i was looking at the square, it just started getting smaller. as i was looking at it, i could see the plume coming out the bottom and i realized it was

falling away from me. that's the one time during the day i was absolutely horrified. >> reporter: the image would not stop him. days after 9/11, days after his company lost two planes, tim duffy volunteered to fly a united airlines jet to tokyo. in between commercial assignments, he would patrol the east coast in his fighter jet. f.a.a. managers terry biggio and mike mccormick would take this day and ask what more they could do. >> reporter: after invading iraq, the u.s. government would try to rebuild iraq's infrastructure, including its air traffic control system. mike mccormick volunteered and recruited others, including biggio whose brother-in-law was fighting there for the u.s. >> i felt like i was on the sidelines. i felt i could do more. i've got all of this experience. i was an f.a.a. academy instructor. they needed a training program

for the iraqi controllers. so i've done all of those things and i felt i could help. i signed up in a minute. >> biggio would help train air traffic controllers in iraq spending nearly a year. mike mccormick stayethrough four tours. >> i don't think anyone ever gets observe it. september 11th is irrevocably intertwined into everything i am and everything i do today. so it's part of me. >> reporter: the footnotes of 9/11 kont. up next, the footnotes who can't forget that face. >> eight months after the attack, i started having psychological problems. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios

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oh, feels good. i miss it. it's been a long time.

>> reporter: ten years later, tim duffy now a colonel. he's once again seated in the fighter jet he patrolled the skies of new york. he hasn't seen this plane in years. >> any time i see a beautiful day to go flying, i kind of think do i want to? >> reporter: the f-15 eagle that patrolled the skies seemingly endlessly was tim duffy's birds eye view collapsing underneath him is now permanently on display at california's pacific coast air museum. >> nice to see the eagle out here. i think it's a great thing that the pacific coast air museum is doing. kind of saving the bird and some of the history that goes with it. >> reporter: duffy no longer works for united airlines and now serves in the air forsz reserves, responsible for supporting the department of defense during disasters. >> reporter: after spending time in iraq rebuilding the air traffic control system, mike mccormick has now been promoted

to the r to the f.a.a.'s headquarters in washington still carrying a desert camouflaged backpack to remind him of those who have died and those still serving. terry biggio, he's also back from iraq and he, too, has been promoted at the f.a.a. to his dream job, overseeing the busiest air traffic control center in the nation, atlanta. his office filled with remiepd mi minders 9/11 and a baseball bat from his brother, form eer housn astro, craig biggio. >> i knew when i was about 10 years olt what i wanted to be i wanted to be an air traffic controller and i have no regrets. as an athlete, it would have been cool. but there's nothing like working airplanes. you know? and there's nothing like being involved in our air traffic control system. it's the greatest in the world.

>> reporter: are you glad you were would recollecting that morning? >> i was. we won ir another at points in has god put me here? in part for mef, i'd like to think that 9/11 is why i was here. >> reporter: the united airlines dispatcher ed ballinger left the airline after 44 years. he has thought about but has not talked to the relatives of those who have died on united flight 93. the flight he tried to warn to say he was sorry. 9/11 commission investigators say there was nothing more ballinger or any of the footnotes in this story could have done. still, ballinger remains haunted by the "what ifs." still trying to put 9/11 in his wake. when we left him, he and his wife were waiting to sail away again. rich belme who took the phone

call from flight 93 now works for a pry vat aviation company. nelson garibilo is still with the secret service. he's a special agent in charge of the special intelligence division. vaughn alex and mike tuohey, the airline ticket agent who is first suspected trouble on 9/11, like the other footnotes, still live in the shadow of that terrible day. the day after the attack, they looked at the suspicious names and the faces of their passengers once more. this time, with the f.b.i. >> the f.b.i. come by my house. they have a full photo array of all of these people. they say here, here's a sheet. can you pick out the two? >> this one was easy. >> when i came to the name hamsey, it was an unbelievable moment. in less than a second, i saw

them, i remembered the brothers. i remembered the whole transaction. and i just stopped. my finger was on their names and i said i did it, didn't i? these are the guys and i did it, didn't i? i checked them in. >> reporter: it would take tuohey days to return to work full time. for alex, it would be months before he could return to dulles. >> it had to have been hard to go back to work. >> yes, i'm not going to kid about it. the paranoia, obviously, was the next person you checked in going to do something horrible again? or was the next passenger you checked in going to die on a flight that you worked? so it was stressful. >> reporter: you went into a real tail spin after this, didn't you? >> i put a lot on me. my wife was real good about things, you know. >> reporter: your wife actually made you go back to work, right? >> i thought about quitting. and she said no. if you don't go back to work, they won. just go back to work and go out

on your own terms. and i did. i stayed another seven years. >> i continue to work until 2004. it took me a while to grasp, get my arms around how big it really was. and, you know, it just sort of what i could expect. it's something that happened and, you know, you adjust to it. but after i retired, eight months after i retired, i started to have psychological problems. >> reporter: psychological problems in that you begin to second guess yourself? >> oh, yeah. or things that i don't even believe in, like hallucinations and seeing people that you know are dead. why do i see him driving by me looking at me in a car? i know none of this is true. i said i know he's dead. >> reporter: tuohey, long since retired, was afraid to leave his

rural home in maine. he sought counseling, was prescribed medication and only now realizes he did nothing wrong. vaughn alex now works for the federal air marshals, helping schedule the cops now in the air. he, too, will never forget. >> i mean, it never goes away. there's not a single day that i don't think about it. there's not a single day that i don't wonder what would have happened if i had done something differently. i did what i was supposed to do that day. i was supposed to take care of passenger service and i took care of those passengers. one of the unfortunate things to this very day is when i go out on a day when there are no clouds, when i go out on a beautiful day, i look up and i go that